


I Saw Foggy Kissing Santa Claus

by readergrl56



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Financial Issues, M/M, Mugging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2016-01-28
Packaged: 2018-05-08 08:35:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5490728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/readergrl56/pseuds/readergrl56
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a mugging puts undue financial stress on the Nelsons, Matt decides to put 'Christmas' on his list of "things that need saving."</p><p>(Just don't tell Foggy)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This basically started because I happened to skim over [this](http://shittyaus.tumblr.com/post/135213406369/christmas-aus-please-thank-you-3) list of Christmas prompts and my eye caught onto one (which I won't specify here so anyone who doesn't want to look at the post won't see spoilers). My brain essentially went " _YES_ " and pooped this out.
> 
> It was originally supposed to be cute and short, but then it completely evolved into a bit of a character study of Foggy and his relationship to his family. 
> 
> I'm going to aim to have the entire work up by, or a little after, Christmas.

The winter has been unseasonably warm this year, so it’s not until a few days before Christmas that Hell’s Kitchen sees its first snowfall. The roads slush up with cinders and salt, and people hum a bit more joyfully when they walk.

Matt is glad for the change. Warm weather means more crimes. Outside mobility is easier when there’s no snow or ice on the ground, leading to an increase in the number of both criminals and potential victims on the streets. With the cold comes a happy respite in criminal activity. After all, kidnappers and drug dealers hate the chill just as much as the average person.

He’s thinking about calling it an early night. So far, the only crimes he’s had to apprehend were a couple of teenagers assaulting a homeless man and a roofied girl being dragged off by her would-be rapist. The Daredevil suit is stiff with the chill, and Matt needs to think about plans for armor that is more weather-appropriate. 

He’s moving over the roofs of some mid-sized apartment buildings when he hears the sound of a gun being drawn. 

_Give us your purse, and we won’t hurt you or your daughter._

Matt quickly scales down the building’s fire escapes and lands between the muggers and their victims. 

“Drop the gun, and step away,” he says, making sure to lower the pitch of his voice.

One of the men whispers, “Fuck.” His heartbeat is fast from the exhilaration of the robbery, now speeding up even more because of Daredevil’s presence. He’s holding the woman’s purse and paper shopping bag. Matt can smell heroin in his sweat, the mark of a junkie. It reminds Matt of the man who killed Elena. He increases the tension in his muscles.

The other man is still pointing the gun at the victims shielded behind Matt. Although his heart has also quickened, there is none of the visceral fear that is present in the addict. This man knows what he’s doing; he’s a career criminal, rather than a druggie in need of cash.

The gunman is the most important threat right now. Matt can only block so much, and the victims are still close enough to be in danger of a lucky hit. Matt quickly surveys the woman and kid, making sure that he didn’t miss any injuries from before his intervention.

His stomach clenches and he can feel the blood draining from his face. Those aren’t two, nameless victims behind him. 

It’s Foggy’s mom and little sister. 

Matt recognizes the scent of ink and sawdust that clings to Mrs. Nelson. Her knuckles are becoming cracked and raw from the cold, gloves still in the pocket of her jacket. Sarah is behind her. Her hair, as fine and long as Foggy’s, sticks to the snot on her face. Matt hears the steady drip of her tears falling onto her padded winter coat.

The Devil rises up through Matt’s body. He feels rage flowing through his veins, readying his muscles. He thinks of nine different ways that he can kill the men, right there in that alley. He wants to sink his fingers into their flesh, feel their blood warming the pavement. He wants them to suffer for the rest of their miserable, goddamn lives.

“Drop it, _now_ ,” he says. 

Mrs. Nelson’s breath hitches, and Sarah starts to sob audibly.

“Fuck you,” the gunman says, and starts to tighten his finger on the trigger.

Matt lunges forward and snaps the wrist of the gunman’s dominant arm. The gunman shrieks in pain, and drops his weapon. Mrs. Nelson whips around and grabs the sleeve of Sarah’s coat, pulling them behind a dumpster. Matt takes the gunman by the neck and slams him against the concrete. A satisfying crack comes from the direction of the gunman’s skull. 

The gunman isn’t knocked out, however. Struggling to breathe, he curls the unbroken wrist into his jacket and pulls out a knife from the inside lining of his jacket. Before Matt can stop him, he plunges the knife into Matt’s wrist. The suit deflects most of the damage, but the attack is forceful enough to make it through the weak spot at the seam of Matt’s glove and sleeve. The tip of the knife slips horizontally into the flesh of Matt’s wrist, causing him to break his hold on the gunman.

Matt squeezes his wrist, pressing against the pain. Blood seeps down the length of his arm, the flow uninterrupted by the fabric of his suit. The gunman scrambles to his feet. He is unsteady, still reeling from the loss of oxygen. His grip on the knife is loose.

Matt wills away the pain in his wrist. He needs to focus on keeping the gunman away from the gun, which still lies on the floor of the alley, not three feet away from their fight. The gunman is regaining strength with every breath he takes, pulling more oxygen back into his lungs. Matt needs to neutralize him as quickly as possible.

There’s a wooden pallet leaning against the alley wall. Matt slowly backs up, reaching out with his uninjured hand. The gunman notices his retreat and charges forward, knife leading the way. Matt grabs the pallet and swings it at the gunman’s legs. The wood hits both of the gunman’s knees with a loud crack, breaking the joints. The gunman goes down and drops his knife. Matt snatches it from the floor and jams it into the side of the pallet, making sure to sink the tip as far as possible into one of the vertical slabs. The gunman is still on the ground, cradling his broken kneecaps. Matt walks over and presses the gunman down with his foot, immobilizing him. He takes a second to breathe in the aroma of sweat and fear, then slams his fist down, knocking the gunman out cold.

Matt turns his attention back to the rest of the alley. Mrs. Nelson and her daughter are still there, cowering by the furthest corner of the dumpster. Sarah is still crying, but she’s able to pay attention to her mother’s constant stream of reassurances. 

The druggie, however, is gone.

Matt silently curses. He’d been so focused on the gunman that he hadn’t noticed the druggie taking off. He tries to focus his senses, seeking out the addict’s stench and drug-warped heartbeat. He thinks he might be making out a match from two blocks away when his wrist gives a sharp pulse of pain. He hisses, clutching at his wound, but his concentration has already suffered the damage, and he loses the trail.

Swallowing against the pain, he makes his way to the other side of the dumpster. He knows exactly when the Nelsons spot him, because Sarah whimpers and Mrs. Nelson bends to protect her daughter. Matt remembers the last time he had seen these two, Mrs. Nelson worrying about him and Foggy after they quit Landman and Zack’s. 

Now, however, all she sees is the Devil. Matt thinks her son would be proud of the shared familial response to this dangerous vigilante.

He slowly reaches out his hand to her, trying not to make himself look like more of a threat. “It’s ok,” he says. “They can’t hurt you now.” 

Except for the escaped druggie, of course. Idiot.

Mrs. Nelson stays still for a few minutes, and then takes his hand. Her other arm is wrapped around Sarah, pressing the girl as close as possible into her side. Mrs. Nelson’s heart is still racing, but she’s steady on her feet.

“Thank you, Daredevil,” she says. Her voice shakes.

A quick survey of the alley reveals that her purse is gone. The shopping bag lies in a cold puddle, the clothes inside completely soaked through with muddy water. 

“There’s a restaurant in the building to our left,” Matt says. “Go inside and use their phone to call the police. I’ll stay here and watch him until they come.”

She nods and makes her way out of the alley, sticking close to the brick wall. Matt listens as she enters the restaurant and tells the hostess what happened. A manager comes to escort her into the restaurant’s office, where she dials 911. Matt notes how she specifically asks for Brett; Foggy must have warned his parents about the number of corrupt cops after the whole Fisk scandal broke. 

It takes the police about ten minutes to reach them. During that time, Mrs. Nelson calls her husband to tell him about the mugging. There’s the clinking of whiskey glasses and the rumble of men’s voices on the other side of the line. Mr. Nelson’s breathing hitches when he listens to his wife’s story, and Matt can hear him pacing around a kitchen as he talks.

The gunman doesn’t wake up at all during their wait. His heart pounds almost in sync with the throbbing in Matt’s wrist. When the police are only a block away, Matt pulls himself back up through the mess of fire escapes. 

Brett is one of the officers in the responding unit. He stops to talk to Mrs. Nelson before joining the other three cops, one of whom is putting handcuffs on the gunman. After they’ve loaded the gunman into the back of a cruiser and bagged up the gun for evidence, Brett goes back inside to wait with Mrs. Nelson. He chats with her about his mom and their old neighbors. 

He even gets Sarah to talk in between sips of the hot cocoa one of the waitresses had given her. Her voice is still hoarse, but she tells him about school and her upcoming plans for Winter Break. She’s much more comfortable with Brett, even after a trauma, than she has ever been with Matt. 

Matt decides to go home after Mr. Nelson arrives and Brett offers to drive them all home in his cruiser. His wound is still bleeding sluggishly, and he doubts he’d be of much use to anyone at this point. Besides, Claire went out of town for the holidays, so he’ll need to get started on stitching himself up as soon as possible.

His apartment is an icebox. It’s not surprising; huge windows and high ceilings don’t exactly insulate a space well. Normally, he’s happy to brave the cold. The cold acts as a training mechanism, to get him used to hardship even when he’s sleeping on silk sheets. If anyone ever asks why his hands were so cold, like Foggy used to do during their internship, he just blames poor circulation.

Sometimes, however, he hates the biting chill. 

After he rubs a special cleaning ointment into the suit to get out the blood, he carefully folds it and puts it back into the chest. Next, he pulls on a pair of sweats and heavy-duty socks.

From the back of his dresser, he unearths an old sweatshirt of Foggy’s. It’s soft and worn and still smells faintly like Foggy, instead of the metallic tang of blood that most of Matt’s comfort clothes seem to have taken on lately.

He grabs his first aid kit from the couch and takes it into the bathroom. Claire had given him some hospital-grade medical supplies for times when she was away or at work. There’s thread and a sterile needle in a sealed package. Matt works the thread through the eye of the needle, cleans his wound with an antiseptic wipe, and gets to work. 

As Matt is cleaning up his supplies after tying a knot in the thread, he hears a muffled _Foggy, Foggy, Foggy_ coming from the living room. His phone is buried under the sweatshirt, projecting a signal through the fabric. Matt pulls the sweatshirt on, wincing when the sleeve brushes his wrist, and answers his phone.

“Foggy,” he says, already knowing what the conversation is going to be about.

“Matt?” Foggy asks. He’s breathing heavier than usual. “You home?”

“Yeah,” Matt replies. He hears Peking Opera music and the heavy whir of machinery, which means Foggy is right outside the 24/7 Laundromat that’s a block away from Matt’s apartment.

“Listen, buddy, we need to talk,” Foggy says. “I’m coming over.”

“That’s fine,” Matt says.

About five minutes later, Matt hears a key scraping in his lock. After their reconciliation, Foggy had insisted on a spare key to Matt’s front door.

Foggy walks in and hangs his coat on the hooks by the door. His jeans scrape against his thighs as he moves.

“So, I just got off the phone with my dad,” he says, not bothering to sit down. “Apparently, my mom and Sarah were mugged tonight. They’re alright, but the thieves got her purse and some Christmas gifts.” 

Matt flinches at the memory. What he wouldn’t give to have that stupid druggie in his hands right now. He wonders if he should put the suit back on and try to track him down.

“I’m sorry,” he says. 

Foggy stops walking. “What?” he says, sounding confused. “What are you talking about? Why’re you sorry?”

Matt rubs his hands along his thighs, pinching at the fabric. “Your mom. She lost her purse because of me. Because I wasn’t able to catch the guy who stole it.”

“Matt, what the hell?” Foggy says. He quickly walks over to the couch and sits down next to Matt. The cushions sink under his weight, pulling Matt in towards Foggy. “Mom said Daredevil _saved_ her, that he caught the guy who pointed a fucking _gun_ at my little sister. Matt, you’re a hero.”

Blood rushes to Matt’s face. Foggy had leaned in as he spoke, and now he was practically face-to-face with Matt, warmth radiating into Matt’s space.

“But, your sister,” he says. “She was scared of me. I frightened her.”

Foggy sighs and runs his fingers through his hair. “Matt, Sarah is six. The public bus still scares her. Besides, she had just been Capital-M, ‘Mugged.’ You have to figure she’d be a little freaked out already, let alone when you add in some guy who apparently hasn’t realized Halloween was two months ago.”

Matt scratches his fingernail against the couch cushion. “But, still…” he says, even though he knows it’s already becoming a lost argument. 

“No ‘buts,’ Matt!” Foggy says. “They were in trouble, you got them out of trouble. End of story.” 

Matt hears him shift in his seat, chewing on his lip. “Now, I am going to give you a gratitude hug.” Matt opens his mouth to speak. “Nope, nope, nope. You can’t get yourself out of this one, buddy. I am going to give you a hug, because that is what friends do when one friend saves the life of the other friend’s loved ones. It’s written into the contract you signed when you became the official Best Friend, so you’re just going to have to suck it up.”

Matt smiles, ducking his head down. “Your accusations are false, counselor,” he says. “I didn’t sign any legal document, so your case is relying on fraudulent evidence.”

Foggy laughs. “I faked my way through half of our mock trials and still graduated Cum Laude,” he says. “I really don’t think a little questionable evidence is going to stop me.”

Matt chuckles and holds his arms out, showing his surrender. Foggy makes a little noise of triumph and pulls Matt in for a hug, arms soft, but firm. His hair brushes against the tip of Matt’s nose, irritating it. Matt carefully brings his own hands up to rest on Foggy’s back, mindful of his still-throbbing wound.

After a minute or two, Foggy pulls away. Matt feels the air cooling the areas where their bodies had been touching. 

“Thank you,” Foggy says. His voice is a little raspy.

“No problem,” Matt says and licks his lips. 

Foggy’s phone starts buzzing from his pockets. He leans back to take it out. “Hold on,” he says. “It’s Debbie. I should take this.”

Foggy stands up and walks over to the window. “Hey, what’s up?” he says.

Matt usually avoids listening in to other people’s conversations, especially when it’s a family matter, but this could be important. Foggy usually doesn’t use the phone to talk to his sister, mostly preferring text. Calls between the Nelson siblings are significant occurrences.

_Did you hear what happened to mom?_

“Yeah,” Foggy says, “Dad told me.”

_So you know she got her purse stolen?_

“Yeah, yeah,” Foggy says. “Why? Is there something more? Did something else happen?” He sounds more urgent now, voice rising with fear.

_Her wallet was in her purse, with all of the credit cards in it._

“Uh huh?” Foggy says, then realization hits. “Shit!” he says, running his hand over his face. “Did you call the bank? What’d they say?”

_Dad called and cancelled the debit card, but the bank said they won’t be able to send him a new one until after the new year. Dan’s helping him look up the info for the rest of the credit cards, but, so far, their answers have all been the same as the bank’s._

“Damnit,” Foggy says. Matt hears the shuffling of his shoes as he paces in front of the window. “Did they have anything done already? I know mom said things were tight with the shop this year, but maybe...” His voice trails off, pleadingly hopeful.

_No. Mom had a few things bought, but a lot of that was for the rest of the family. She still doesn’t have most of Sarah’s things, and the ones that she did get are still on layaway. I tried calling the store, seeing if we could pay it off later, but they all said they have to have payment up front._

Foggy groans and starts to sink down against the wall. Matt quickly jumps up and grabs Foggy’s arm, leading him back to the couch. Foggy slumps against the back of the couch, shoulder pressing hard into Matt’s.

“Ok,” he says. “I’ve got some money in my checking account. We can use that to pay off some of the layaway.”

_Dan and I are going to help with this month’s payment on the shop, but we just bought the house, so we don’t really have much either._

“Do you think we could ask Aunt Aggie or Uncle Joey for some money?” Foggy says.

_You know how Mom is about asking for help. And, Aunt Aggie has enough to deal with since Uncle Sal’s heart attack. I think it’s best if we just keep this in the family. We’ll work something out. I can always ask for more hours at the store, and Dan said there’s a new job downtown that needs some extra guys to put up drywall._

“Ok,” Foggy says. “I’ll think of something on my end and let you know what I can do.”

_Ok. I’ll talk to you soon. Love you._

“Love you, too,” Foggy says, and hangs up the phone.

Matt sits silently, wondering what he should do. He’s always known that the Nelsons weren’t the most well-off people in the world. After all, Foggy’s attendance at Columbia had been decided upon by the amount of financial aid he could get. However, he hadn’t heard the true extent of their current financial troubles. 

He winces at the thought of Nelson & Murdock’s last case, which he had insisted on taking pro-bono.

“Given the current state of your face, I’m sure you heard most all of that,” Foggy says.

Matt leans forward. “If there’s anything I can do,” he says. He has a good amount of money, and he’s only had to buy presents for a small handful of people. He could certainly spare some cash.

“No, Matt,” Foggy says. “I’m not going to take your money.”

“It really wouldn’t be an issue,” Matt says. 

“Matt, I said no!” Foggy says, and stands up. “I need to go sort some things out.” Matt starts to open his mouth. “Don’t even start.” He walks to the door and grabs his coat. “I’ll see you in the morning. Oh, and make sure your wrist doesn’t fall off, or something.”

The door shuts quietly behind him.

Matt spends the rest of the night thinking about the mugging and its aftermath. For an hour or two, he reaches out with his senses as far as he can go, seeking some clue into where the second mugger had gone. 

He wonders if he should suit up again, go out and find the guy, but decides against it. Daredevil’s main territory is on the upper level of the city, where navigation relies more on his arms and hands than his legs. Unless he wants to do more harm to his injury, which Foggy would surely notice in the morning, he would have to go around Hell’s Kitchen on foot as Matt Murdock. Catering to his blindness, plus the mere fact that walking was much slower than leaping around, would make him slow and conspicuous. 

No. Matt knows how he’s going to right this injustice. He’ll leave the police to question the gunman. Given the speed with which the addict abandoned his partner, Matt knows there’s no love lost between the two. If the gunman knows the other guy’s name, he’ll definitely use it to reduce his charges. 

After checking his bank account online, Matt starts to make a list in his head. If he can pull this off, the Nelsons will have a very Merry Christmas, and Foggy will be none the wiser.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, feedback is appreciated. You can connect with me on my [Tumblr](http://weaver56.tumblr.com/) at any time.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd always envisioned Foggy's family as a little more conservative than the fandom usually makes them out to be. I'm not talking completely on the far right of everything, but there's a certain type of mentality that comes from hard, blue-collar work.

Matt is first in the office the next morning, arriving even before Karen. When she walks in, following an aborted attempt to reach for her keys, she heads towards Foggy’s office, clearly used to him being the punctual one. Matt hears her hum of confusion when she sees that Foggy’s office is closed and locked. 

She turns towards the other office. “Matt?” she says. 

He gives a little wave. “Morning,” he says.

Her heels press into the floor as she walks towards his desk. “Do you know where Foggy is? He texted me last night, saying he might be late. Is everything alright?”

“Actually,” Matt says, and clears his throat, “no, he’s not. His mom was mugged last night. His little sister was with her when it happened.”

Karen gasps and brings her hand up to her mouth. “Oh my god,” she says. “Are they alright? Did anyone get hurt?”

“No,” Matt says, “Daredevil saved them, apparently. Caught one guy, but the other one ran away with Mrs. Nelson’s purse.”

“Oh, how terrible,” Karen says. “I wonder if there’s anything we can do.”

Matt hadn’t thought about it, but Karen would make a valuable addition to his plan. He’s about to ask her to join him when he hears the sound of Foggy’s footsteps on the stairs.

Karen jumps slightly at the sound of the door opening, but she quickly recovers and goes to greet Foggy. 

“Matt told me what happened last night,” she says, taking Foggy’s briefcase so he can unbutton his coat. “Is your family ok? Are you?”

“I’m fine, Karen,” Foggy says. “No one was hurt, just a little shaken up. Everything’s going to be fine.”

He smells of clean, but stale, sheets and his dad’s favorite brand of shampoo. Stiffness in his posture reveals that he spent the night on the cheap futon in his parent’s spare bedroom. He’s already drunk a least two more cups of coffee than he usually has at this hour.

Matt stands and walks over to Foggy’s office. He’s not sure if he should brace himself for a fight or just pretend it never happened.

“Hey,” he says.

Foggy looks up from where he’s shifting through some files on his desk. “Hey,” he says. 

Karen stands between them for a second, then rushes over to the kitchenette. She pops a plastic lid off of its container, and the smell of coffee fills the office.

“Listen,” Matt says, “about last night.”

Foggy holds up a hand to silence him. “Stop,” he says. “You don’t need to start apologizing. It was my fault. You were just trying to help and I blew up in your face.”

“It’s not a problem,” Matt says. He hears Karen chewing on her fingernail, the crunch partially hidden under the gurgling of the coffee maker. “You were worried. It’s perfectly understandable for you to be upset.”

Foggy huffs a fake laugh. “Yeah,” he says, “Trust my parents to find the _one_ bank in all of Manhattan that closes for, like, a week during the holidays. So, now they can’t even go up to a teller to get money from their account.” He falls back into his chair. “They’re screwed, basically. Thank god we at least ordered new cards before the bank closed.”

Foggy presses his head into his hands, propped up on the desk. “For what it’s worth,” he says quietly, “I really am grateful that you, that _Daredevil_ was there last night. I don’t even want to think about what would’ve happened if you hadn’t stopped those guys.”

Matt walks over and reaches across to squeeze Foggy’s shoulder. “Listen,” he says, “I will always be there to protect those I care about.”

Foggy stays silent. 

“Hey, guys,” Karen says, tapping her knuckle on the doorframe. “Coffee’s done. Either of you want some?”

Foggy takes a deep breath, then straightens up. Matt’s hand falls off his shoulder. “Dearest Karen,” he says, “I would _love_ some of your wonderful coffee, made, I so humbly assume, from the finest of beans, dried in the Italian sunshine and ground with the utmost precision by ninety year-old Sicilian nuns. Like drinking the elixir of the gods.”

Karen snorts. “Or, it’s the shitty generic stuff that you bought from the 7/11 down the street because you were too lazy to go to the actual supermarket and buy decent swill.”

“You, my clever friend, are too smart for your own good,” Foggy says. “Matt, I think she deserves a promotion from ‘Secretary’ to ‘Executive Office Administrator!’”

Matt laughs and says, “That’s the same exact thing, just with different wording.”

“And that, my friend,” Foggy says, “is the mark of a damn good lawyer. Complete and utter bullshit, wrapped up in some fancy mumbo-jumbo.”

They spend the rest of their morning working on cases. Foggy yells at the WiFi for a good thirty minutes, then calls Karen a “technology queen” when she manages to get it working again. Matt reads through New York City zoning laws, and surreptitiously browses through the online catalogues of a couple local toy stores.

Noon eventually rolls around. Karen stands up and stretches, joints popping throughout her body. She pulls on her coat while Matt makes his way towards the door, fingers tracing along the walls for guidance. 

“What do you guys think about Thai for lunch?” she says. “There’s a new place that just opened next to the nail salon. I haven’t heard any reviews, but they had their menu up on their window, and it sounded really good.”

“I’m fine with Thai,” Matt says.

“Foggy?” Karen asks. He’s still sitting at his desk, making no movements to get up.

Foggy coughs. “Go on ahead,” he says. “I’m going to stay in, get a little more work done. I even brought my own provisions.” He reaches into his desk drawer and pulls out a paper lunch bag. Matt smells a peanut butter sandwich and a few crushed potato chips.

“You sure?” Karen says, hesitantly. “We could always pick you up something, and bring it back with us.”

“No, no. I’m good,” Foggy says. “You two go right ahead. Let me know, for future reference, if the food is good enough for me to cheat on Spring Blossom House with.”

“Ok,” Karen says. “Well, I guess we’ll see you after lunch.” She grabs her purse from her chair and waves ‘goodbye’ to Foggy.

Matt turns towards Foggy and frowns, but decides not to say anything. He grabs Karen’s elbow and lets her lead him down the stairs and out of the building. 

They don’t talk during the walk to the restaurant. It’s only a block away, and the arctic winter air pulls the breath out of their lungs.

Once they’re seated and have a pot of tea in front of them, Karen starts the conversation.

“Is Foggy ok?” she asks. “I mean, like, honestly ‘ok.’ Because, he doesn’t seem like it. I haven’t known him as long as you have, and maybe I’m just misreading the signals, but I think something’s definitely wrong. Is it just the fact that his family got mugged? Or, has something been going on with him that I don’t know about?”

Matt can hear the slight hint of accusation in her voice, but decides to ignore it. “I think it’s a mix of things,” he says. “His mother and sister, the financial situation.” 

He pauses and wonders if he might be betraying Foggy’s trust with the next observation. “I think he feels guilty about not being able to take care of them, especially his little sister. Before Sarah, Foggy was the younger brother, and Debbie treated him as such. When Sarah came, Foggy could finally dote on somebody and act as their protector, even though he was already finishing up undergrad when she was born.”

Matt pauses and bites his lip. He listens to the din of the cooks, yelling at each other in Thai.

“His family also wasn’t too happy with him going to Columbia,” he says.

“What?” Karen says, leaning forward. Her hair brushes against the surface of her teacup, soaking the tips. “Columbia’s, like, an Ivy League school. I would’ve thought they’d be ecstatic that he’d be going there.”

“They were proud that he got accepted,” Matt says, “but Columbia’s an expensive school. His parents could barely help him with undergrad tuition, and they thought law school was unnecessary when he’d already gotten one degree. All of his cousins had at least four years of work right after high school. A lot of them were even making good money as craftsmen, but Foggy could only work part-time or do unpaid internships. It got a little better when we started working at Landman and Zack’s, and his parents realized how much he was making, even as an intern,” Matt rubs his palm against his thigh, “but then we decided to form Nelson and Murdock, and, well, you can clearly see what the financial situation is like with that.”

The waitress walks over and sets their food on the table. After she leaves, Karen pulls out her chopsticks and breaks them apart.

“So, you think Foggy feels guilty because he can’t solve his family’s financial problems?” she asks, holding her chopsticks over her plate. “Isn’t that a little unfair? I mean, he’s not even thirty yet.”

Matt smiles and tilts his head towards her. “Catholic guilt,” he says. “Just because Foggy hasn’t gone to mass in twelve years, doesn’t mean he’s immune.”

“God,” Karen says, “that’s horrible.”

Matt pulls a noodle out of his bowl and chews on it. The wheat came from somewhere in the Great Plains, and the taste of factory machinery still clings to it.

“Maybe,” Karen says, “do you think we could help him at all? I know he probably won’t accept money, but possibly like a gift for his mom or Sarah.”

Matt leans back into his chair, deciding not to deal with the taste of three different kinds of sweat in his soup. “I might have an idea,” he says.

“What is it?” Karen asks.

“I have some money saved up that I’m not using,” Matt says. “I offered it to Foggy, but he refused for the same reason that you just stated. He doesn’t like charity, thinks it means we’re pitying him, but there might be a different way around that.”

Matt reaches back into his coat pocket and pulls out a piece of paper. He printed it so it would be written in both Braille and regular type. There was the slight worry that Foggy would find it and catch on to his plan, but, owing to Foggy’s rudimentary knowledge of Braille, that would’ve happened even if he hadn’t included the printed transcription.

The paper crinkles in Karen’s hands as she reads it over. 

“So,” she says, setting it down on the table, “you want to buy a bunch of gifts for Sarah? Isn’t that almost the same as just giving money to Foggy?”

“Similar,” Matt says, “but not entirely the same. Every year, Foggy invites me back to his parents’ house for their annual Christmas dinner. We always stay in their extra room the night before, even when our apartments were just a few blocks away from theirs. Foggy always said it was so his mom could absolutely guarantee that he would be able to help her with preparations. She’s already invited us to stay this year, and Foggy’s taken her up on her offer. I suspect his resolve to stay there overnight will have been strengthened even more by the mugging.

“If I can purchase these gifts and wrap them before we leave, I’ll have a nice window of opportunity when everyone’s sleeping which I can use to stick them under the tree. His parents still live in Hell’s Kitchen, so I’ll easily be able to go back to my apartment and fetch the presents. In the morning, his parents will probably just assume it was either Foggy or Debbie who did it.”

Matt can tell Karen is studying him closely. Her lips are pursed. “What happens when Foggy talks to Debbie and realizes that neither one of them bought the gifts? He’ll still be mad at you for going against his wishes.”

Matt shrugs. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. This way, Sarah is still guaranteed to get a full list of presents from ‘Santa.’ If Foggy ends up mad at me afterwards, I’ll know that at least one Nelson had a good Christmas.”

“And what’s my role in all of this?” Karen asks.

“I need you to help me do the shopping,” Matt says. “The packages won’t come early enough if I order them online, and, while I can manage going shopping by myself, it’ll be a lot quicker if there’s someone else there to spot each item.”

Matt doesn’t mention the other reasons that he hates shopping in large department stores. When he was younger, it was always a combination of too much sensory input and the pain of listening to families getting together for the yuletide season. The only time he ever got to shop in those types of stores was when some celebrity or charity decided to pity the poor orphans and take them on a “special” shopping trip. 

In his first year of law school, Matt had practically been dragged to the local Macy’s to help Foggy with his last minute Christmas shopping. The store had been as loud and smelly as he remembered from childhood, but at least he’d had Foggy to distract him. They’d wandered around, Matt arguing that Foggy couldn’t just buy snow globes for his entire family, and Foggy “accidentally” abandoning Matt in the lingerie department.

All in all, Matt thanked God for the invention of online shopping.

Karen slumps back in her chair and sets the list on the table. “Alright,” she says, “I’ll do it. But if, and only if, you guys work out whatever problems may come out of this. I don’t want a repeat of whatever fight you guys had following your ‘accident.’ If Foggy gets upset with you for going above his head, you two are going to have to talk it out. I don’t want to be the intermediary again.”

Matt nods. “I promise.”

“I feel like we should spit on palms and shake hands, like we used to do in scouts,” Karen says. “That way, at least, I can be sure of your honesty. It’s practically a sin to lie to somebody whose spit you’ve slapped.”

Matt laughs and leans forward, holding out his little finger. “I’m told a pinkie-swear is almost as binding,” he says.

“I’ll accept your offer, Murdock,” Karen says, “but if I get any inkling of dishonesty, I swear I’ll come at you so fast with my spit hand that you won’t know what hit you.”

“Deal,” Matt says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do love feedback in all its forms. Feel free to connect with me on [Tumblr](http://weaver56.tumblr.com/).


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are going to pretend that it's still December and that I'm not updating this two and a half weeks after Christmas...
> 
> On the plus side, I'll be updating very quickly now! 
> 
> Also, sorry if the Spanish in this is completely wrong. I've taken, like, four weeks of it ever in my life, so we're relying on good ol' Google Translate here.

The rest of the week follows a similar pattern. Foggy brings a packed lunch to the office, refuses Matt and Karen’s invitations to go out, and eats alone at his desk. 

Matt and Karen use their lunch hour to strategize for the day’s shopping excursion. They’re able to get a lot of stuff in small shops around Hell’s Kitchen. For the more big-ticket items, they take a cab to the surrounding neighborhoods in Manhattan. Since Matt can’t exactly bring his purchases back to the office with him, he and Karen make a point of leaving Nelson and Murdock exactly at five so they have enough time to venture out into the wilds of holiday shopping.

Whenever Matt and Karen wave ‘goodbye’ at the end of the day, Foggy’s voice sounds tired and he slumps down in his chair. He also puts more time in the office than usual; Matt makes a point to walk past when he’s done with the shopping and, more often than not, he can still hear Foggy’s tired sighs emanating through the walls.

By the end of the week, a pile of assorted toys, clothes, and books has piled up in the corner of Matt’s bedroom. He’s happy that there’s been no serious crime for Daredevil to deal with. If he had been seriously injured and Foggy insisted on coming over, Matt doesn’t know if he would’ve been cognitive enough to prevent him from finding the gifts.

Karen comes over on the day before Christmas Eve to help Matt wrap the presents. She has a few rolls of wrapping paper under her arms, accidentally smacking Matt in the chest with them when she bends over to untie her boots.

“I thought I said I would cover everything,” Matt says, taking the wrapping paper away from her before it can do anymore damage.

“Yeah, well,” Karen says, “Foggy told me about that one time in college with the ‘It’s a Boy!’ wrapping paper, and I just wanted to make sure that that wouldn’t happen again. Heaven forbid Sarah should wake up Christmas morning and think Santa had brought her a baby brother.”

Matt laughs. “Did Foggy also tell you that he was the one who stuck it in my hands, claiming it was covered in ‘cute, little elves’?”

“He insisted it was ‘Special Blindness Training Reinforcement,’” Karen says. “Said that, if you hadn’t managed to guard yourself against those types of hazards yet, then there was no hope for you. Also, I heard there was a girl involved.”

Matt cringes at the memory. “Yeah,” he says. “Her father wasn’t exactly pleased when I pulled out a tie box covered in that stuff.”

Karen laughs. “Hopeless,” she says. “But, looks like you managed perfectly fine on your own this time. This one has got some very tasteful Santa hats all over it.”

Matt ducks his head, blushing. “I might’ve had some help on those,” he says.

“Oh, really?” Karen says, sounding not so innocently curious.

“The, uh,” Matt says. “The salesgirl was, how should I put this, _interested_ , and I might have taken advantage.”

Karen cackles. “Oh, Matt,” she says, “Foggy told me about your Casanova ways, but at _Christmas_? Isn’t that, like, against the Ten Commandments or something?”

“It was for a good cause,” Matt mumbles, but Karen had decided to ignore him in favor of clearing off a space on the floor for them to use.

They work quickly. Karen expertly tapes the seams of each square of wrapping paper over the packages, and then folds the corners to form a tight seal. She tells him that she used to do this over and over again at her high school retail job, so she’s gotten pretty good at it over the years. She teaches Matt how to do it, guiding his fingers over the edges of the paper. 

When Matt’s father was still alive, presents from Santa had been messily stuffed into old gift bags, and Foggy was even worse at wrapping than Matt, so he’s glad for the lesson.

After all the presents are wrapped, Matt puts a pot of water on the stove for pasta. Karen is busy signing “To Sarah, From Santa” on a pile of gift tags. Matt had thought about doing it, since he almost never writes with his hands, but he worries that Foggy might still be able to recognize the shaky handwriting as something produced by a blind man. Instead, Karen had claimed an almost ambidextrous-like talent for writing with her left hand, and shooed Matt into the kitchen.

“Done!” Karen yells, throwing her hands up in the air. 

Matt is busy shaking out the excess moisture from the pasta, so he doesn’t respond until she walks over and pokes him in the arm.

“Hey,” she says, “how about a ‘thanks Karen,’ ‘you’re so wonderful, Karen’?”

Matt sets down the colander and turns towards her. “Thank you, Karen,” he says. “I really can’t say how much your help means to me.”

Karen ducks her head down and combs her hair through her fingers. Matt feels the warmth of the blood rushing to her face. 

“You’re welcome,” she says. “I mean, it would be kind of a shitty thing to just leave Foggy’s family without any presents.”

“Yeah,” Matt says. 

He stays silent while he dishes out the pasta into two bowls and adds the sauce and chicken. He hasn’t heard from Foggy all day, which is unusual. Normally, he’d be sending stupid little jokes to Matt, or sudden bursts of inspiration about their current case. The last time he had talked to Foggy was the day before, when he and Karen left the office together.

Karen and Matt eat quietly, conversation sparse when it does happen. If Foggy had been there, he would have filled the silent moments with conversation. 

It used to drive Matt crazy when they first lived together. As somebody who was used to being left alone in silence, Foggy’s constant chatter seemed like a bunch of gnats, angrily jabbing Matt wherever he went. 

Matt never realized just how much he now hates the quiet.

As soon as they’re done with dinner, Karen gathers up the dishes to put in the sink, and Matt runs back to his bedroom to pull a box out of his dresser. When he returns, Karen has soapsuds running her forearms, and the sink smells like chemical lemon. 

“Matt, what is it?” she asks, drying her hands off with the dishtowel.

“Here,” he says, handing her the box. “Merry Christmas.”

Karen steps around the counter and takes the present from him. The glue on the tape unsticks, strand-by-strand, from the paper, wrapped perfectly by the woman at the jewelry store. The box creaks open.

“Oh, Matt,” Karen says, “They’re beautiful.”

She holds up the earrings, which, Matt suspects, sparkle in the light of the billboard. 

“The saleswoman said the amber would go lovely with your eyes,” he says. “I mean, I obviously had to take her word for it, so I hope she wasn’t lying to me.”

“No,” Karen says, “She was definitely not lying.” She smooths her fingers over the pendants. “These are really lovely.”

Matt smiles. It really hadn’t been any trouble. Foggy had waxed rhapsodically about Karen’s eyes, “gorgeous as the bluest sky,” on one too many nights out. A quick Google search of color complements to blue eyes, and some nicely-worded inquires at the jewelry store, had resulted in the gift. All Matt had to do was stick it in his suit pocket on his way out of the shop.

Karen places the earrings back in the box and gives Matt a quick hug. “You’re the best,” she says.

Matt loosely hugs her back, then steps away to give them some space. Karen grabs her purse from the chair and sticks the box in it. 

“Well,” she says, “I should probably get going before it gets too late.”

She ties her boots back on her feet and wraps her scarf around her neck. “Let me know how it goes with Foggy,” she says. “Remember, you guys need to talk _through_ your problems. None of this macho, anti-feelings bullshit. I’d better have two sets of cheeks to kiss on New Year’s, or you’ll both be hearing from my lawyers. Capeesh?”

Matt smiles and nods. “Capeesh,” he says.

After Karen leaves, Matt grabs two gym bags and starts packing up the presents. Not wanting Sarah’s gifts to smell like either blood or sweat, he had purchased new bags for the occasion. The gifts barely fit inside, but, with a little extra pushing and shoving, Matt manages to pull the zipper shut.

He stores the bags in a dark corner of his bedroom. They’ll be hidden from sight if Foggy looks in, but still easily accessible for when he has to come back in the middle of the night.

Next, he packs his own overnight bag for their stay at the Nelsons. After the first two years of spending Christmas Eve with Foggy’s family, Matt had offered to stay at his own apartment for the night and join Foggy later in the evening, when the rest of the extended family were also due to show. 

What he hadn’t expected, however, was the catch in Foggy’s voice when he told Matt that it was alright, that he had heard Melanie inviting Matt to spend Christmas with her family, and that he didn’t want to hold him back from some sexy mistletoe action. 

It had taken three cans of his cousin’s crappy beer during Christmas dinner for Foggy to finally loosen up and start casually leaning into Matt again. After that night, Matt decided to never bring up that option again.

He does a quick patrol in the evening, but doesn’t run into anything beyond a few kids making away with a six-pack from a liquor store. He decides to let it go, sticking around just long enough to make sure the storeowner doesn’t retaliate violently.

His reasonably normal bedtime means that he wakes up bright and early on Christmas Eve. Foggy isn’t due for at least another hour and a half, so Matt showers and runs to the corner market to get supplies for breakfast. He’s chopping up vegetables for omelets when Foggy knocks and lets himself into Matt’s apartment.

“Merry Christmas Eve!” he says, awkwardly navigating his package-laden arms towards Matt’s living room.

“ _Feliz Nochebuena_ ,” Matt says, walking over to help Foggy with his burden.

“You know that’s unfair, right?” says Foggy. “Hindus don’t celebrate Christmas, ergo no ‘Merry Christmas Eve,’ making the poor little Fogster over here look both culturally _and_ linguistically insensitive for not knowing that bit of information.”

“I’m pretty sure Tina Basu was both Christian and a Punjabi-speaker, and that she taught you how to say ‘Christmas,’” Matt says, “so, I really don’t think you’ve got an excuse there.”

“Details, shmetails,” Foggy says, dropping his bags on the couch with a sigh of relief.

Matt hears plastic toys rattling in their boxes. Out of all the presents Matt knows Foggy had wanted to get for Sarah, there are only a few boxes resting in Foggy’s suitcase.

“So,” Foggy says, walking over towards the kitchen, “what disgustingly healthy breakfast are you going to force down my gullet this year? I don’t know what you superhero people put in your radioactive stomachs, or whatnot, but us normal people actually like a bit of deliciousness to go with our morning grumpitude.”

Despite his protests, he still snatches a pepper slice off the cutting board. Matt smacks the back of his hand as punishment. 

“Ow!” Foggy yelps, theatrically cradling his hand to his chest. “Unfair usage of superhuman powers, Your Honor! If my hand is now broken, I’m totally suing you for everything you’ve got.”

Matt laughs. “Your hand isn’t broken,” he says, then pauses. “I’d hear the cracks if it was.”

Foggy stops kissing his hand and looks up at Matt, hair brushing against his shoulders. “You can do that?” he asks, echoing Claire.

Matt’s not sure if Foggy’s tone is apprehensive or admiring. 

“Yeah,” he says, “the bones move differently when they’re broken. There’s much more rubbing, which sends off vibrations through the body.”

“Huh,” Foggy says, and sits down in one of the chairs at the kitchen table.

Matt’s brain scrambles to come up with a way to get them on a different subject. 

“I, uh,” he says, wiping his hands on a dishtowel, “I got you something.” He quickly walks over to the living room and grabs a present off of the coffee table. 

“Matt,” Foggy says, “you didn’t have to do that.”

“Yeah, well,” Matt says, “I wanted to.” 

It’s the same argument they’ve had since their first year of law school, when Foggy had handed him a hard-to-find Braille edition of Thurgood Marshall’s collected writings, and Matt had sat there, mortified that he had nothing to give in return.

“I guess now’s as good a time as any,” Foggy says, and pulls a package out of his suitcase after joining Matt.

“You didn’t-“ Matt begins.

“Stuff it,” Foggy says, “and just take the present.”

Matt works his fingers under the seams of the wrapping paper, carefully separating the edges. Inside the box is a phone, resting on a bunch of folded tissue paper. The phone is old and fairly beat-up. After he flips it open, he follows the voice assistance through the menu options and ends up in the “Contacts” section. There’s only one number, similar to his current burner. He clicks the arrow down to select it and hears the computerized voice list recite each digit of Foggy’s phone number.

Foggy shifts his weight and runs his hand through his hair. “I know you already have your current phone,” he says, “and you’ll probably want to keep that one since it has your hot nurse friend in it, but I figured I might as well give you this one just in case. You know, as a backup if the other one gets smashed or something.”

Matt cradles the phone in his hand, afraid that it might get crushed if he squeezes it too hard.

“It’s more of a, uh, symbolic gesture, really,” Foggy says. “What I’m trying to say is that I wouldn’t mind if you stuck my number in there along with the nurse’s. In fact, I’m requesting it. I don’t want to keep hearing about these things second-hand.”

Matt opens his mouth, but can’t think of anything to say. There’s a lot wrong with this, a lot that could put Foggy in some serious danger if Daredevil ever gets caught. 

At the same time, however, Foggy has already pushed his way into openly talking about Matt’s other identity. Claire had also mentioned Foggy while she was patching Matt up, saying that she wouldn’t mind somebody else to communicate with if things got bad.

“Ok,” Matt says, “but you keep this phone.” He deletes Foggy’s number from the contact list and types in his own burner’s information, as well as the number from the phone that he gave to Claire. “If somebody finds Daredevil’s phone, it won’t be good for you if your personal number is in there. Call my number and I’ll save this in my phone.” Foggy nods and clicks on the “Send” button. Matt hears slight vibration from the direction of his suit, which ends as soon as Foggy stops the call.

“Good,” Matt says. “Now, just keep it well-hidden wherever you take it. I’ll always have mine on me, but, remember, this is for absolute emergencies.”

Foggy nods again, and something compels Matt to reach out and cover Foggy’s hands with his own. He applies just enough pressure to slowly close them together over the phone.

Foggy’s heart spikes, and quick burst of heat pulses from his hands. Matt snaps back and breaks the touch.

“So, anyway, um,” Foggy says, clearing his throat. “That’s good to know.” He tucks the phone into an inner pocket of his suitcase. “I’ll be sure to keep this safe somewhere.”

“Thank you,” Matt says.

There’s a moment of silence, then Foggy straightens up. “Oh!” he says, “I still have to open your present.”

Matt hears the sharp sound of Foggy ripping away the paper. “It’s probably not as good as yours,” he says.

“Nonsense!” Foggy says. “You know I’d be happy with an old shoe.” He pauses and hums. “Though, I’d probably have some choice words for you if, in fact, you did get me some smelly sneaker. From what I’m seeing, however, it’s already an improvement from last year. Does crime fighting include learning crafting skills, because, dang, Murdock, this is some A-level wrapping you’ve got going on here. It’d make me super pissed that a blind guy was better at me than this, if it wasn’t my gift currently encased by the Victoria Beckham of present presentation.”

The long line of paper falls to the floor. Matt listens as Foggy holds up the frame and looks it.

“It’s about us,” Foggy says, quietly.

“It’s about _you_ ,” Matt says. “Well, you and Karen, and I guess Marci as well. About your help with the Fisk case.”

Foggy’s finger squeaks as he moves it along the glass. “This doesn’t mention Daredevil,” he says. “They don’t even refer to you as the Man in the Mask or anything. How is that even possible? Who wrote this?”

Matt plucks his sleeve, fibers scraping against his fingers. “There’s still some people out there,” he says, “who don’t approve of us. Who like to focus on the work of the legitimate justice system.”

“Oh,” Foggy says. “This article is from a newspaper in _Phoenix_. How the heck did you find it?”

“Just found it somewhere on the web,” Matt says. 

Truthfully, it had been quite a lot of online digging for articles that mentioned the Fisk case, but didn’t contain any allusions to Daredevil. It had taken Matt weeks to sort through everything, contact the publisher for a copy of that week’s paper, and have it framed. He’d barely gotten it wrapped before he was due to meet with Foggy.

“Well,” Foggy says, “It’s getting an honorary placement in my office. Probably over that giant stain which I’m still not entirely sure isn’t a big old blood stain.”

“You know,” Matt says, “I could probably help you out there. Blood does tend to leave a rather strong smell behind.”

Foggy lightly punches Matt in the arm. “If you want to spend your evenings sniffing the walls in my office,” he says, “then be my guest, but don’t come crying to me when Karen inevitably calls the loony bin on you. Heaven knows our poor secretary puts up with enough crap from us.”

Matt laughs. “Deal,” he says.

After putting away their gifts, Matt and Foggy head back to the kitchen, where Matt starts combining ingredients for the omelets. Foggy sits and complains about being forced to adhere to a superhero diet until Matt reaches into one of the cabinets and chucks a box of donuts at him. 

“You still planning on going to mass with us tonight,” Foggy says through a mouthful of pastry, “or are you going to do your ultra-late midnight mass thing when all the good little kiddies are in bed?”

“You make me sound like some sort of supervillian,” Matt says, steam from the pan rising up to kiss his cheeks. “And, no, I’ll just go with your family. It’s been a while since I’ve been to St. Mary’s.”

“Cheating on your priest already?” Foggy says. “Tsk tsk. All those deadly sins build up, and you might just fry on the spot.”

“I don’t see you complaining about accepting sustenance from a supposed enemy of the Lord,” Matt says, setting Foggy’s omelet down in front of him.

“I’m a simple man with simple pleasures,” Foggy says. He picks up his knife and fork and starts cutting into the eggs. 

Matt loses himself in the feeling of Foggy being near, simply sharing a meal like they used to do before things got so complicated. He wonders how many more Christmas Eve mornings they have together before he’s either gone or Foggy leaves him again.

All too soon, they finish eating and start preparing to leave. Matt forces Foggy to help him wash the dishes, partially fearing that he might wander around the apartment and discover the presents. After everything’s cleaned and put away, he goes to grab his overnight bag while Foggy shrugs on his coat.

“Here,” Matt says, “let me help.” Foggy’s hair is caught between his coat and his scarf, which he put on all at the same time. Matt reaches over and gently pulls the strands away from the tangled mess. His fingers lightly brush against the heat of Foggy’s neck. 

Foggy clears his throat. “Uh, thanks,” he says.

Matt pats him on the shoulder and grabs his own coat from the rack. It’s been a while since he saw the Nelsons.

Hopefully, they’re not still too mad at him for upending their son’s career.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is nice!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, hello to Foggy's family!

They take a cab to the Nelsons’. Foggy tries to protest about the expense, but Matt hears his muscles straining under the weight of his suitcase, and insists on paying for the ride.

Although dampened by the slight argument, Foggy’s mood lifts the instant they pull up to his parents’ building. Matt hears Foggy’s older sister talking to her husband in the lobby, while their parents move around in their apartment a few floors up.

“ _Oh, they’re here!_ ” Debbie says, tugging her husband towards the door.

“Foggy!” she says, boots crunching over the layer of rock salt on the sidewalk. “How’s my favorite baby brother?”

Foggy shuts the cab door and wraps his arms around her. “Merry Christmas, Debbie,” he says, voice muffled by her scarf.

“God, it’s been too long,” she says. “You guys need to come by the house and see what we’ve done with it. Dan finally figured out why the fridge was making that awful whining noise, so now I can finally spend more than five minutes in my own kitchen without going crazy.”

“Soon,” Foggy says, “definitely.” They break apart, and Foggy goes over to shake Dan’s hand.

“Merry Christmas,” he says.

“Merry Christmas,” Dan replies. “How’re you doing? Deb says you opened up your own firm?”

Foggy sticks his hands in the pockets of his jacket. “Yeah,” he says, “decided to make a go of it. You know that Fisk case that just blew up? We helped out with that.”

“Oh yeah?” Dan says. “Pretty impressive, there. I heard he was involved in some pretty sketchy deals, especially with all those cops. It’s a shame what’s been happening recently. Puts the good guys out of work while the bad ones just keep benefitting from shoddy management.”

“Yeah,” Foggy says. “Anyways, how’s your work? Debbie said you had some sort of job downtown?”

Dan shrugs. “Yeah,” he says. “It’s a little slow right now, but what can I say? At least I’ve got a job. That’s better than a lot of people.”

Matt finishes pulling the bags out of the trunk and pays the driver. He stands there for a second while Foggy chats.  
“Oh, Matt,” Debbie says, turning to him, “how could we forget about you? It’s good to see you again!” She hugs him, and then holds him at arms’ length. “My, my, you just get handsomer every time I see you. You must be fighting off all the girls within a ten-mile radius.”

“They’re not the only people he’s fighting off,” Foggy says, barely audible to anyone but Matt. 

Matt snorts. 

“What’d you say?” Debbie says, turning towards Foggy.

“Oh, nothing, sister dear,” Foggy says, humming innocently. “Though, it _is_ getting a little nippy out here, don’t you think? We should probably be heading inside.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Debbie says. “Here, let me get that,” she tells Matt, as she reaches for his bag.

“You really don’t have to,” Matt says, vainly grasping at the shoulder strap while she tugs it out of his arms.

“Yes, I do,” she says. “You’re a guest, after all.”

Matt knows from past experience that arguing with the Nelsons over matters of hospitality is almost as impossible as taking down a crime lord, so he relents. 

Dan moves toward them and hoists Foggy’s suitcase over the curb.

“It’s good to see you, Matt,” he says.

“It’s nice to see you, too,” Matt says, and sticks out his arm for a handshake. “Merry Christmas.”

Dan clasps Matt’s hand. “Merry Christmas,” he says, and starts lugging the suitcase towards the apartment building.

“Come on,” Foggy says, and sticks out his elbow for Matt to grab onto. “Mom’s probably already got a list a mile long for me to do. Might as well get it done as early as possible.”

“From what I can recall,” says Matt, back-steering Foggy away from a patch of black ice, “you are most essential to the polishing of your grandmother’s silver. Probably the only Nelson in the entire clan who can do it.”

Foggy groans. “Don’t remind me of that,” he says, stamping his feet on the lobby’s rug. “I’m lucky to have made it past middle school with all the brain cells that stupid stuff has probably wiped from me. Why couldn’t Great-Grandma Fidelma have brought over potatoes from Ireland instead of that stupid teapot? They would’ve been _much_ more useful and not lived long enough to torture her poor great-grandson.”

They all cram into the building’s small elevator and ride up to the Nelsons’ floor. Matt stays pressed up against Foggy the entire time, not liking what the suspended mechanical platform does to his senses.

The hallway has the same slightly mildewed smell that he remembers. One of Foggy’s neighbors had purchased a real pine tree, and the thick sap clings to Matt’s throat as he breathes it in.

Debbie reaches the apartment first, and pounds on the door.

“Honestly, Debbie,” Mrs. Nelson mutters as she walks to the door. The TV inside is set to an old Christmas special of _Matlock_.

The door swings open. “Foggy!” Mrs. Nelson exclaims. “So good to see you! Come, give your mother a hug.”

Foggy moves in to hug his mother. “Hi, mom,” he says. “Merry Christmas.”

“And Merry Christmas to you, too,” Mrs. Nelson says. “Come in, come in. Here, let me help you with that, Dan.”

“It’s alright, Patty,” Dan says. “I’ve got it.” He drags the suitcase over the threshold, carefully working through the crowded hallway.

“And, how are you, Matt?” Mrs. Nelson asks, turning towards him. “I hear business has picked up since you boys worked on that whole thing with Wilson Fisk.”

“Yeah,” Matt says, “we’ve been pretty busy with clients, lately.”

He stands by the closed door while the rest of the family slips into the apartment. After a minute or two, Foggy makes a confused sound, then doubles back to grab Matt by the elbow.

“What’re you waiting there for?” he says. “Come on. Let’s go throw our stuff in my room.”

Matt lightly traces the wall with his fingers while Foggy leads him through the apartment. They pause to greet his father and for Foggy to noisily kiss Sarah on the cheek, then continue on to his old bedroom.

Matt loves Foggy’s childhood bedroom. 

Even though he hasn’t actually lived there for five years, the room is still entrenched with a heavy feeling of Foggy. His scent clings to the furniture, and the room still contains all of his possessions from high school and undergrad. 

Matt sometimes wonders what life would have been like if he had kept going to school in Hell’s Kitchen. Would he have befriended Foggy and visited this room when Foggy still lived in it?

“Looks like one of us is going to have to use the air mattress again,” Foggy says, poking his toe into it. “Hopefully, it won’t collapse on me like it did at Easter.”

“Builds discipline,” Matt says, “sleeping on the hard ground like that. It’ll toughen you up, make you a better attorney.”

“If I were anything other than the best damn attorney in Hell’s Kitchen, I would take offense to that, Murdock,” Foggy says, poking him in the chest, “but, as that is _clearly_ impossible, I shall refrain from doing so.”

“Whatever you tell yourself to help you sleep at night,” Matt says, smiling.

“I’m totally sticking my tongue out at you right now, jerk,” Foggy says, aforementioned tongue giving him a bit of a speech impediment.

Debbie knocks on the side of the doorframe. “Hey,” she says, “Dad needs your help with setting up the folding table.”

“Right,” Foggy says. “Be there in a sec.”

Matt hangs up their suits while Foggy goes to help his father. He runs his thumb over the seams of Foggy’s jacket and frowns when he feels the slight fraying.

After he’s done in the bedroom, he wanders back out into the rest of the apartment. Foggy is struggling with the legs of an old, creaky card table. Matt hears him curse under his breath, unsuccessfully trying to shield Sarah from the foul language.

“You want help?” he asks, walking over.

“If this thing wasn’t thirty freakin’ years old,” Foggy grumbles, tugging on a leg.

“Here,” Matt says, and squats down next to Foggy. He grabs the troublesome leg and gives it a good yank. It springs up, narrowly missing his face.

“Jeez,” Foggy says, reaching out to brush Matt’s forehead. “Don’t be ruining your pretty little face, right there. It’s what brings in half our business.”

“And the other half?” Matt asks, tilting his head.

“My irreplaceable charm and boyish good looks, of course,” Foggy says, gesturing to himself, “which, by the way, I am now pointing out for your viewing pleasure.”

Once the table is set up and covered in a tablecloth, Foggy is tasked with dusting and vacuuming everything the entire house. Debbie and Dan have been sent away to collect some last-minute ingredients, taking Sarah with them. 

Matt assists where he can. At one point, he offers to carry the plates to the dining room table, so they’ll be something less to worry about before Christmas dinner, but Mrs. Nelson’s heart goes into overdrive when he picks of the stack of her wedding china, so he abandons that thought.

Finally, the evening rolls around. The Nelsons prepare a quick dinner for all of them, which they very carefully eat on barstools in the kitchen so as to not mess up the dining room table.

Debbie and Dan disappear to her room, while Foggy’s parents usher Sarah away to help her get dressed. Foggy finishes with the dishes, and then heads to his own bedroom to get ready. Matt follows.

They get ready in silence. Matt strips down to just his underwear, and he hears Foggy do the same. Nudity doesn’t bother Matt, and, after spending years in the same room or apartment, Foggy has almost gotten used to sharing the space like this.

Bending down to pick up his pants, Matt listens to the sound of Foggy’s throat constricting, sweat beginning to form near his hairline. 

Matt smiles to himself. _Almost._

The church is a short, ten-minute walk from the apartment. Matt notices how Sarah refuses to let go of her mom’s hand the entire time, even though both Foggy and Debbie make efforts to converse with her.

The foyer has that deep scent of old wood that Matt loves, despite the linger of chemical polish. A young family is passing out bulletins, the three kids running up to anyone they can find to thrust the paper at their chest. 

One of the sons reaches Foggy and Matt before they even have the chance to unbutton their coats. Mr. and Mrs. Nelson have gone off to chat with friends, while Debbie, Sarah, and Dan go to find a pew for the family. 

Foggy graciously takes the bulletin from the kid, wishing him a “Merry Christmas.”

The boy starts to pull out another one for Matt, and then pauses. “Oh,” he says. “You gonna be able to read this?”

“ _Jeremy!_ ” the mom hisses, quickly walking over. “I am so sorry,” she says to Matt. 

“It’s alright,” Matt says.

“That’s why he has me,” Foggy says, bending down to address the kid directly. “I read stuff to him, he buys me pudding. It’s a win-win situation.”

The kid nods, which Foggy narrates, then is swept away by his mother.

Foggy sighs. “Sometimes,” he says, “I wish I could just get away with being that blunt, especially in the courtroom”

Matt elbows him in the ribs. “Need I remind you of the first thing you asked me when we met?” he asks. “Something about ‘peepers getting knocked out’?”

“Lies, all lies,” Foggy says, steering them towards the coatroom. “I was the pinnacle of tact upon our first meeting.”

Before entering the sanctuary, they hang up their coats and Foggy gets stopped by no less than seven women who simultaneously praise him for his accomplishments and guilt him for not attending mass.

The sanctuary is lit by dozens of candles, wax slowly melting down into the brass holders. The high ceilings amplify each voice as they echo throughout the room. 

“Do you want to sit with the family or in the back?” Foggy asks.

“Let’s go sit with your family,” Matt says. “I think I’ll be fine up front.”

They squish in next to Dan, and Matt leans his cane against the seat of the pew. Foggy shifts a bit, trying to get comfortable on the wood, then opens up the bulletin.

“Ok,” he says. “Now, we _begin_.”

He reads through the entire program, front to back, top to bottom. Matt starts to giggle starting at the unconventional reading of the “Silent Night” lyrics, and has to stuff his fist in his mouth by the time Foggy get to the “Parish News” section.

“Hey,” Foggy says, “I will _not_ have you laughing at this. Whether or not the youth group goes to see a movie or goes ice skating next Wednesday is _serious_ business. Serious business, Matt! And I am going to contact Miss. Eleanor Hodsley as soon as we get home and state my case!”

“Whatever you say,” Matt says. 

Foggy sucks in a breath to say more, but is interrupted by the priest welcoming everyone to the service.

After mass, Foggy and Matt walk Sarah back to the apartment. Mrs. Nelson had needed to work out some details with her Bible study group, and Debbie hadn’t wanted her parents to walk home alone, so Foggy volunteered to take Sarah home.

Snowflakes lightly brush Matt’s cheeks as they walk, pace slowed down to accommodate Sarah. Foggy has a firm grip on his sister’s hand.

Sarah pauses a couple of times, breathing the same way that Foggy does when he’s hesitant to speak. 

“Foggy?” she finally asks, voice quiet.

Foggy turns to her. His grip on her hand tightens before he forces the muscles to relax.

“What is it?” he asks.

Sarah bites her lip. The raw skin sticks to her scarf.

“Do you think Mommy knows-?” she asks, then stops. “I wanted to tell Santa that it’s ok if I don’t get too many presents this year. I, um, I really only wanted another Barbie, so, if there’s not a lot of presents this year, I’ll still be happy.”

Matt grips Foggy’s elbow, steering him down the sidewalk. Foggy has gone cold; Matt can feel it even through the fabric of Foggy’s clothing. He keeps his hand clasped tight, pressure steady and firm.

“I, uh.” Foggy’s voice breaks. He clears his throat. “I’m sure that, that Santa has done his best to make sure that you, that you will get everything you want this year. You shouldn’t worry about something like that, Sarah. You really shouldn’t worry about something like that.”

Salt water drifts backwards towards Matt. He can practically feel Foggy’s sinuses starting to clog, his throat starting to dry out.

He steps forward and picks up his cane so that it doesn’t drag along the ground. Moving his hand up towards Foggy’s armpit, Matt shifts so that Foggy’s arm is cradled against his chest. It makes walking awkward, but he’s the only thing keeping them from collapsing against the sidewalk.

They continue like that until they arrive at the Nelsons’ building. Matt reaches into the inner pocket of Foggy’s coat and pulls out his keys, finding the one that will unlock the front door. He pushes them into the lobby.

Once they’re up in the apartment, Matt separates from Foggy and Sarah. He goes into Foggy’s bedroom and sits on the bed, listening to the sounds of Foggy putting Sarah to sleep. There’s the slight press of Foggy’s lips on Sarah’s hair, then the creak of the door hinges.

Matt looks up when Foggy walks in. His footsteps are heavy, and his shoulders are tangled up in a tight knot. Matt pats the spot next to him on the bed, and Foggy sinks down into the mattress.

“I just,” Foggy says, burying his face in his hands, “I just don’t know what to do, Matt.”

Matt doesn’t know what to say. It’s always been Foggy who’s the comforter, the one with optimistic words. 

“You’ve done what you can,” he says. “You’ve done more than your fair share.”

“But it’s not enough!” Foggy says. “Do you know that, despite all my work, all the money that I’ve tried to save since the mugging, I was only able to buy her a few lousy gifts? Two of which are from the dollar store! What do you think she’s going to do when she wakes up tomorrow and sees basically nothing under the tree? When she goes back to school and all the other kids are talking about the mounds of presents Santa gave them, and all Sarah got was a fucking jigsaw puzzle?”

Matt is silent.

Foggy sighs and pushes himself up off the bed. “I just don’t know what to do right now, Matt,” he says. “Everything’s gone to Hell and all I’ve done is screw up.”

“No, Foggy!” Matt says, standing up. “That’s not true. You shouldn’t believe that of yourself.”

“Yeah?” Foggy says. He walks to the door and stops. “Well, I do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to leave feedback!


	5. Chapter 5

Foggy walks into the kitchen and pours himself a drink. The sofa springs creak when he sits down, whiskey glass clinking against the wood of the coffee table.

After a couple of minutes, Matt joins him and pours his own glass. They don’t talk. The whiskey tastes strongly of metal holding tanks, not wooden barrels. Matt drinks it anyway.

The Nelsons arrive in a flurry of cold hallway air. Mrs. Nelson sets a plate of cookies down on the table. Foggy forces a cheerful tone in his voice, and welcomes them back. They chat about the service, and Mrs. Nelson tells him all about the latest gossip from church.

Debbie, who has clearly heard all of this during the walk back to the apartment, turns to her husband and walks over to her mother.

“Well,” she says, grabbing Dan’s hand, “it’s been a bit of a long week, so I think we’re going to turn in now.”

“You sure, dear?” Mrs. Nelson asks. “You’re not getting sick or anything, are you?”

“No,” Debbie says, already angling towards the hallway. “We just need some rest.”

“Ok,” Mrs. Nelson says. “Well, goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” Debbie says, kissing her mother on the cheek.

“Goodnight,” Dan says, addressing the room as a whole.

After they leave, Mrs. Nelson turns back to Foggy and asks, “Did you put Sarah to bed?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I think she’s already asleep.”

“Good,” Mrs. Nelson says.

A slight snore comes from the old, leather armchair, where Mr. Nelson had sat after getting home.

“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Nelson says. “I guess we really should be getting to bed as well.”

She walks over to the chair and shakes Mr. Nelson’s shoulder. He wakes up with grunt. “What? What?” he says, voice garbled.

“Come on, dear,” she says, pulling him up. “Time for bed.”

Mr. Nelson rubs a hand over his face and breathes out an “Ok.” He shuffles down the hallway, using the wall for support. “’Night, boys,” he says.

Mrs. Nelson kisses Foggy on the cheek and wishes him a goodnight. Then, she goes over to Matt and leans forward.

“She’s going to kiss you,” Foggy warns. “Right cheek.”

Mrs. Nelson stops. “Oh,” she says. “Sorry, about that. I should’ve warned you.”

“It’s alright,” Matt says.

Mrs. Nelson leans down all the way and kisses him, lips barely touching his cheek. She straightens and quickly moves away.

“Well, see you boys in the morning,” she says.

As soon as she’s gone, Foggy gets up and pours himself another finger of whiskey. Matt’s glass is barely touched.

Foggy stares down at his drink. “Do you remember when we were still at Landman and Zack’s,” he says, “and there was that case, the one where they withheld the guy’s retirement benefits? It was our first time really working independently of anyone else.”

“Yes,” Matt says.

The prosecutor, Mr. Gilman, had claimed that his company purposefully changed his employment records to say he hadn’t met the required number of years of employment, thereby making him unable to collect full retirement benefits.

“Do you know how I eventually won that?” Foggy says. “How I found that obscure little precedent that proved his extended paternity leave had constituted a contractual break from employment?”

“No,” Matt says.

“It’s because, at that time, I was helping my Uncle Frank with his retirement,” Foggy says, “and I noticed a clause in his paperwork that matched that of Gilman’s. I was able to take something that had happened decades ago and twist it around to win the case. Mr. Gilman was younger than I had been when he did that, hadn’t even been at the company for five years. And I screwed him over, ruined the rest of his life, just because I wanted to win.”

Matt runs his fingers through the condensation on the outside of his glass. The droplets create little tributaries in the pads of his fingers.

“And you know what the worst thing about that is?” Foggy says. “I was so damn proud of myself. So proud that I had just found the smoking gun and impressed the higher ups.”

“It was our _job_ , Foggy,” Matt says. “We decided to work there, knowing the types of clients and cases they took on. You were asked to do your job, that’s it.”

Foggy laughs, dry and hateful. “That was never it,” he says, “not with you. You always kept your morals intact. Do you think I didn’t notice when you ‘accidentally’ screwed up some paperwork or ‘missed’ something that ultimately shifted favor over to the little guy? No, you were doing what you thought was right. I was doing what I thought would make me rich. I guess karma really has a way of biting me in the ass, doesn’t it?”

Matt clenches his hand into a fist. Yes, there were times when he had gotten mad at Foggy’s greed, at seeing his friend be so selfish. Those moments, however, had been paralleled by instances of Foggy’s amazing generosity.

When one of the paralegals had suddenly become ill, Foggy volunteered to take on most of her paperwork so she wouldn’t have to work from the hospital. There was also that time when he gave up most of his lunch break to trek down to one of the other intern’s favorite bakery and buy him a birthday cake, even though he had called Foggy “fatass” not even two weeks before.

Most of all, Foggy had given up a job at one of the most prestigious law firms in Manhattan just to follow Matt on his crazy pipe-dream, even when it meant suffering a huge financial blow.

Before he can articulate all of this, Foggy drains the last of his whiskey and stands up.

“I’m going to bed,” he says. He walks over to the kitchen and sets his glass down in the sink. “I’ll see you in the morning, Matt.”

Matt lets him go.

An hour passes. Matt checks on each Nelson individually, listening to the rhythms of their hearts and breaths.

Mr. Nelson is the first to fall asleep, still groggy from his nap. Mrs. Nelson stays awake next to her husband for about thirty minutes until she, too, falls asleep. They snore in tandem.

Although she was the first to be put to bed, Sarah is still restless by the time Matt checks in on her. She shifts in her bed, and gets up to pace around her room. Eventually, she pulls the blankets high over her head, latches onto a giant stuffed animal, and drifts off.

Debbie stays up and talks to her husband for a while. Foggy’s name comes up a couple of times, but Matt decides not to listen too closely to their conversation. At last, Debbie checks the time on her phone and suggests that they go to sleep. She and Dan each use the bathroom to wash up, then finally crawl into bed. Debbie sleeps on her back, Dan’s head cushioned by her chest. They fall asleep within five minutes of each other.

Foggy takes the longest to go to sleep. He lies in the bed, heart rate racing. The sheets get tangled up in his legs. It’s only when the whiskey seems to take effect that he drifts off, mumbling occasionally.

Matt waits another thirty minutes after Foggy is asleep before he stands up. He still has Foggy’s keys in his coat pocket. He slips on his coat and unlocks the balcony door. Once he’s outside, he relocks the door and tucks the keys back into his pocket.

The fire escape is about a meter away. Matt easily jumps the distance, then pulls himself up to the roof. From there, he leaps across rooftops until he reaches the door to his own apartment.

He is carrying the bags into his living room when he hears a scream.

_No, no. Please, dear God, don’t do this Chris! He’s your child! He’s our child. Don’t, please._

Matt is stripping out of his suit before he can even think. He has a duty to Hell’s Kitchen. He quickly dresses himself in the Daredevil suit and runs toward the conflict.

He finds a family of three sheltered in an alley. The wife is on the ground, blood seeping from her forehead and clutching at two broken ribs. The husband’s breath reeks of alcohol. He has a knife pressed up against the throat of a young boy.

Matt silently works his way to a fire escape right above the husband, and jumps down. He grabs the man’s wrist and yanks it away from the boy. The boy runs to his mother, who props herself up to embrace him. Matt punches the man again and again, mapping the pattern of new bruises and bone fractures.

One final punch knocks the man out cold.

Matt walks over to the mother and son.

“We need to get you to a hospital,” he says. “Do you have a phone?”

“I do,” says the woman. She reaches into the pocket of her jeans. Her breath catches when she twists her torso.

“Do you think you’ll be able to make the call yourself?” Matt asks.

The woman nods, and dials 911.

Matt conceals himself a few floors up until the police and EMTs arrive. They put her and her son in a separate ambulance from the husband. The squad car stays in place, officer filling out an incident report on his computer.

Matt is just about to leave when static comes from the car’s radio.

_Hostage situation, West 51st and 10th, Church of the Holy Shepherd. Three armed assailants. Estimated twenty civilian hostages. Assailants heavily armed. All available units, please respond._

Matt stalks along the buildings until he locates the church. He finds a bell tower on the roof and jumps down, landing on the chamber’s wooden platform with a slight thud.

The hostages are all cowering under plastic tables in the church’s basement. They seem to be in a large dining room, with a kitchen off to the side.

Two of the gunmen are guarding the prisoners. One is barking demands to the police through a cell phone. A third gunman is in an office on the first level of the church. He has his gun pointed at his hostage while they frantically try to unlock the office’s safe. 

Matt creeps down the attic stairs and through the church’s library. The office is the only lit room in the hallway, but Matt feels the residual warmth from the sanctuary lights. He steps into the coolness of the shadows and slides along the wall.

The safe creaks open. The gunman leans in to look at the contents.

Matt kicks in the office door, startling the gunman. He slams the gunman across the head. The man’s skull cracks and he stumbles backwards. The gun falls from his hands, and Matt kicks it across the floor. He hooks his arms around the gunman’s neck and squeezes. The gunman goes limp.

“Thank you, thank you,” the hostage says, clutching the safe.

“Don’t thank me yet,” Matt says. “They might’ve heard this downstairs. Is there anyway to get down there without using the main staircase?”

“There’s emergency stairs leading off the nursery,” the man says. “They open to the Sunday School classrooms. Once you’re down there, take the left hallway all the way down. It connects to a back door in the kitchen.”

“Thank you,” Matt says. “Is there anyway they would be able to see out of the basement?”

“No,” the man replies. “The only windows are above the classrooms.”

“Good,” Matt says. “The police are outside. Run out and stay with them. I’ll handle the other two.”

“Godspeed, young man,” the man says.

Matt follows his directions down the basement stairs and through the hallway. The other gunmen hadn’t heard the commotion from upstairs. Either Matt was a lot quieter than he thought, or these are just terrible criminals. He hopes for the latter.

The door to the kitchen is locked, but Matt easily breaks the lock. He stays low, sensing the open serving window. A group of knives are hanging from a magnetic bar above a cutting board. Matt slides four of them off and tucks them between his fingers.

He finds the light switches along one of the walls and grins when he realizes that they attach to the lights in the dining room.

He flicks off the lights and hears the confused gasps from the gunmen. He pushes off and leaps through the serving window, throwing the knives as he glides over the still-warm buffet dishes.

The knives embed themselves in each of the gunmen’s hands. They drop their weapons, howling in pain. Matt jumps on a table and backflips to where the first gunman is. He kicks him in the side of his head and stomps on his chest when he goes down.

The second gunman tries to scramble towards the door, but Matt catches him. He yanks both the knives out of the man’s hands. The man howls in pain. Matt takes one knife and buries it in the man’s arm. The other goes into his thigh. He pushes them in until the man faints from the pain.

Satisfied that the gunmen are no longer a threat, Matt darts back through the kitchen and into one of the Sunday School rooms. One of the hostages flicks the lights back on in the dining room, and the parishioners start to come out from their hiding places.

Matt finds a window in the classroom and punches it to break the glass. A few of the policemen on duty hear the sound, and rush to the side of the church. Matt carefully climbs up the uneven stone wall and places himself behind the bell tower.

The police barge through the front doors of the church, guns held erect. They discover the first gunman in the office, then work their way down into the basement.

They find the two other men, tied together with twine from the kitchen. The hostages have broken off into small groups, each finding comfort among familiar faces.

More police come in after they get the “all clear” over the radio. A small handful goes from group to group, writing down statements. Most of the parishioners correctly guess that it was Daredevil who saved them, even though the room was pitch black the entire time.

Matt tries to go home after the cops have the situation in order, but Hell’s Kitchen has apparently decided to blow up overnight.

There’s a Molotov cocktail thrown into the front window of a shelter for domestic abuse victims.

A woman slips off an icy balcony and clings to the frozen metal railing for dear life.

Hired thugs from the Italian mob corner a local business owner. The rings on their fingers clink against heavy brass pipes.

By the time Matt’s left in an alleyway, cheek smarting from a lucky hit, the first trickles of sunlight have already begun to warm Hell’s Kitchen. He curses and races back to his apartment.

There’s no time to change out of his Daredevil suit and into normal clothing, so Matt just pushes his discarded clothes aside and slings the bags of gifts over his shoulder.

The Nelsons seem to be still asleep when Matt unlocks the balcony door with Foggy’s key. He doesn’t have time to check on every single person, but the overall chorus of sounds indicates a good omen.

The door closes with a solid thud, and Matt unzips the first of the bags. He arranges the gifts as neatly as he can, feeling for the slight plateau of Karen’s tags in order to put the proper side facing up. The gifts form little mountains as he piles them on top of each other.

Soft feet pad along the floor. A heartbeat quickens.

“Matt?” Foggy asks.

Matt freezes.

“Matt, is that you?” Foggy asks again.

He steps into the living room.

“Why are you wearing your suit?” Foggy asks. “God, are you alright? Are you hurt?”   
Matt still has one of Sarah’s presents in his hand. The contents rattle as his hand shakes.

“I’m fine,” he says.

Foggy hums and walks over to Matt. He stops when his toes hit the edge of the tree skirt.

“What is this?” he asks. “Where did you get all of this?”

Matt sets the present down. He refuses to turn towards Foggy, but his senses still pick up on every little detail.

“I wanted to do something nice for Sarah,” he says.

Then, much more quietly: “For you.”

Foggy crouches down, knees cracking. He picks up the present that Matt had just set down.

“You bought all of this?” he asks.

“Yes,” Matt says.

Foggy silently turns the package over, examining it from all sides.

“Were you going to tell me about what you were planning,” Foggy asks, “or just wait until I saw it in the morning?”

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Matt says. “I figured you’d be angry, but, if I left it until the morning, Sarah would get her presents no matter what happened.”

“So,” Foggy says, “you did this even though you thought the best case scenario would have been me not knowing it was you, and the worst case was me getting angry again?”

Matt nods.

“And, now, since the first one clearly isn’t an option anymore,” Foggy says, “you’re thinking it’s going to devolve into the second one?”

Matt winces. Foggy doesn’t sound mad right now, but that would probably change very soon.

“Yes,” he says.

Foggy hums. “What about a third option?” he says.

Matt frowns and tilts his head towards Foggy. “Third option?” he says. “What do you mean ‘a third option’?”

“I _mean_ ,” Foggy says, “that you’re looking at this from only one angle. What other ways could I react to your actions? In fact, tell me how I’m reacting right now.”

Matt thinks. “Well,” he says, “for one, you haven’t started yelling at me yet.”

“ _Yet_ ,” Foggy says, then sighs when Matt tenses. “Never mind. Just go ahead.”

“Your thigh muscles are fatigued,” Matt says, “hurting from being in this position so long.”

“Painfully true,” Foggy says. He adjusts so he’s sitting cross-legged. Matt does the same.

“Your heart is beating fast,” Matt says, “but your shoulder muscles aren’t tensing.” 

Matt concentrates on his spatial awareness. “In fact, you’re leaning into me, not away, and your posture indicates openness.”

“You’re starting to sound like those guys at Columbia who smoked a little too much grass,” Foggy says and laughs.

Matt feels himself grow excited.

“Your hair is still mussed up from bed,” he says, “which means you haven’t combed your fingers through it in frustration yet. There’s no grinding coming from your teeth. In fact, the top and bottom rows aren’t even touching each other. Your sweat doesn’t have the sour, heavy smell of pure testosterone. In fact, it smells sweet. Little bit of testosterone, mixed in with oxytocin, which is normally a sign of sexual-.”

He cuts himself off.

“Oh,” he says.

Foggy’s heart ramps up.

“I, um, _wow_ ,” he says. “I guess it’s super cool that you can sniff out chemicals in somebody’s sweat.”

“Foggy, I am _so_ sorry,” Matt says, running his hands over the Kevlar covering his thighs. “I didn’t mean to. It just kind of…came out.”

“No,” Foggy says, “I guess it’s my fault for asking.”

Matt licks his lips.

“Foggy,” he says, “why aren’t you angry about all of this?” 

Foggy looks up at the Christmas tree.

“I guess,” he says, “I pretty much expected you to do something like this. It’s like when a situation is almost so inevitable that you try to do whatever you can to veer fate off its path, even though you know it’s pointless.

He looks down and fiddles with the leg of his pajama pants.

“It’s the same as when we used to work our asses off preparing something as simple as a contractual argument,” he says, “even though we pretty much knew the outcome from day one. Still, we’d make sure that every single one of our bases were covered.”

He stops fiddling and just sits there, fist clenching around the fabric.

“I think,” he says, “that there are two certainties which I’ve come to realize: Matt Murdock will always try to help those in need, no matter if they ask for it or not,” he pauses, then takes a deep breath, “and that I will always follow him wherever his stupidly noble heart takes him.”

Matt’s heart pounds.

“Oh,” he says.

“Yeah,” Foggy says, forcing a laugh. “ _Oh_.” He scrunches up his shoulders. 

“Don’t worry, though. I don’t expect anything back. I just thought you might want to know.”

“No,” Matt says, “you don’t understand.”

He cups Foggy’s cheek with his hand. Foggy flinches.

“Sorry,” Matt says. He withdraws his hand and quickly pulls his glove off with his teeth. Then, he places his hand back on Foggy’s face. “I meant ‘Oh’ as in I hadn’t realized how you felt.”

Foggy begins to turn away from Matt’s hand. Matt brings the other one up to block his retreat, mindful not to touch Foggy’s skin with his glove.

“No,” he says, “What I’m trying to say is that I _want_ you to expect something from me. I want you to expect _everything_ from me, and I want to do the same to you.”

Foggy inhales sharply. “‘Oh,’ indeed,” he says.

“Yeah,” Matt says. 

“Well, then,” Foggy says, “I, uh, think a celebration may be in order.”

Matt feels Foggy’s cheeks slowly stretch up into a smile. He knows that there’s a matching grin already plastered on his own face.

“What did you have in mind?” he asks.

“I’m sure,” Foggy says, “that if we put our heads together, we might be able to come up with _something_.”

“Oh,” Matt says, “I’m sure we will.”

He leans forward, and meets Foggy in the middle.

Foggy’s lips are soft, flavored with the lingering taste of his toothpaste and the whiskey from earlier. Matt catches Foggy’s bottom lips with his teeth and gently tugs, provoking a smile from Foggy when the skin snaps back into place.

Foggy places a row of gentle kisses along the line where the Daredevil mask presses into Matt’s face. Each kiss leaves a cool spot, soothing the inflamed skin. Matt nuzzles his forehead against the top of Foggy’s head. The heat from Foggy’s scalp just barely manages to warm Matt’s skin through the armor.

Once Foggy has finished tracing the edges of the mask, Matt uses his teeth to properly plump up Foggy’s bottom lip. He accidentally bites down too hard in one spot and smiles when Foggy swats him in retaliation. Matt whispers a quick apology and licks up the tiny drop of blood.

His hands start to lose their grip on Foggy’s face. Matt moves his gloved hand down to rest on Foggy’s thigh so he can stabilize himself. The other hand tangles in Foggy’s hair, pulling them closer together. It glides through the strands, mapping spots that cause Foggy to moan if Matt applies just a little bit of pressure to them.

Matt thinks about the bed in Foggy’s room. It’s covered in a pile of quilts, which, Matt is almost certain, probably still retain some of Foggy’s body heat from earlier in the night. If Matt can just pull him up and guide them towards the door, he could be surrounded in a cocoon of Foggy within no time.

There’s a gasp from the hallway entrance.

“Foggy?” the voice asks.

Foggy pulls himself away, nearly falling back down in his haste to stand up.

“ _Shit!_ ” he whispers. Then, “Sarah? What’re you doing here?”

Sarah doesn’t answer him. Her heart is starting to beat faster, and her attention is entirely focused on Matt.

“ _Santa?_ ” she asks, quietly.

Matt turns and stands. The dim, morning sun warms his face.

Sarah’s breath catches and her heartbeat speeds up. She rocks back on her heel, but doesn’t retreat.

“Daredevil?” she asks, and folds her arms around herself.

Matt smiles and tips his head to her. “It’s nice to see you again,” he says.

Foggy hurries over to Sarah and kneels down.

“Sarah,” he says, “It’s ok. Mr., uh, Daredevil is a good guy, remember? He just came by to make sure you, and mom, and everyone else were doing alright.”

Sarah stays quiet, but her hair wisps back and forth as she looks between Foggy and Matt.

“But, Foggy,” she says, then drops her voice down to a whisper and leans in towards Foggy, “why were you, um, _kissing_ him?”

Matt has a hard time hiding his smile. He can tell Foggy is glaring at him, even though all he can actually sense is the bloom of heat along Foggy’s cheeks.

“I was _thanking_ him,” Foggy says.

“And it was a very nice ‘thank you,’ too,” Matt says, noting the pleasant way his Daredevil voice makes Foggy shiver.

“Yes, well,” Foggy says, straightening up, “let’s wish Mr. Daredevil a good night, or, um, morning, then we can go back to our room and wait until everyone wakes up so we can open presents. How does that sound?”

He puts his hand on her back and tries to steer her towards the bedrooms. She stays put and looks up at Matt.

“Daredevil?” she says, “I, um. Thank you for saving me and my mom from those bad guys.”

She steps away from Foggy and walks over to Matt. She wraps her arms around Matt’s waist and rests her cheek on his stomach. Matt holds his arms aloft for a second. Then, he gently places his hands on her back and gives it a small pat.

“You’re very welcome,” he whispers.

Sarah lets go of Matt and wiggles out of his embrace. Foggy steps forward and offers her his hand. She takes it, and they head towards her room.

Matt stays in the living room. The lights on the tree flash on and off, electrical currents running through each bulb in succession. He reaches up and unhooks his mask from the rest of his suit, pulling it over his head.

“ _Matt?_ ” he hears.

Foggy is still in Sarah’s bedroom, sitting on the floor next to her bed. Sarah lies in her bed, clutching to stuffed animal. Foggy’s voice is too quiet for her to hear.

“ _Matt,_ ” Foggy begins again, “ _I just wanted to say that you’re the best, buddy._ ”

Matt grins, ducking his head down towards the floor.

“ _Merry Christmas, Matt,_ ” Foggy says.

“Merry Christmas, Foggy,” Matt says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was such fun to write! Thank you to everyone for their lovely comments. Also, heaps and heaps of thanks go to [cloudofsmoke](http://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudsofsmoke/pseuds/cloudsofsmoke) for being an amazing beta reader. 
> 
> Feedback is always appreciated. I can be contacted via my [Tumblr](http://weaver56.tumblr.com/).


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